Page 24 of Love, Nemesis
Lethe watched him impatiently for a moment. It felt like it had been five minutes and he’d cleared one rung.
He rolled his eyes, stomping down on the end of the rope ladder and tightening it.
Manaj stepped down on the rung with a solid foot and lowered his other foot down, slipping on the next rung.
After a few more attempts, Lethe looked to the ceiling impatiently and gave the ladder a single sharp shake as he pulled back on Manaj’s robe.
The little man fell into his arms and Lethe flipped him upright so he landed on his feet.
Manaj stood there for a moment with his hands out. He looked up at Lethe and uttered one of his characteristic hissing laughs before tottering deeper into the room.
“How are you getting me back up?” Manaj asked.
“I’m leaving you,” Lethe replied.
Manaj squinted into the darkness, removing a cloth from within his robe. “Dear, dear,” he said as he saw the symbol of the broken arrow on the wall.
It was the insignia of the Strike’s regime. It had been a long time since Lethe had seen it, or really any likeness to it. Since the war, people had even started drawing arrows with circles or lines at the end at the risk of replicating it.
Lethe didn’t blame them. There was a cryptic language tied to the development of mutations, or their more intentional form—curses. No one knew for sure that the broken arrow wasn’t a letter or symbol in The Eating Ocean’s language that held its own power.
“So close to us too. We never would have known,” Lethe said.
Manaj shuffled over to the cabinet near the table and, using the cloth, pulled on the knobs. He stepped back as they both observed the large array of bottles lined neatly on the shelves.
“What a serious offense to us all,” Manaj whispered in prayer.
“Manaj, you can pray later. What should we do with these?”
Manaj hit Lethe’s shoulder. “You should pray!” he scolded and then clasped his hands together, tears forming in his eyes.
Lethe leaned away slightly as Manaj continued, glad that he at least didn’t have a ladle today.
“The Strike’s horrible experiments…defying what should and shouldn’t be done. How many are there?” Manaj asked.
Lethe leaned in toward the cabinet. “I’d say there are about thirty hearts and about seventeen minds. One—” He paused, removing a piece of cloth from his pocket and picking up one vile to inspect it. “This is a surprise.”
“What?”
“A soul. I’m surprised there are any left.” He set it back into the cabinet, leaving the cloth with it. Inside, the translucent gray substance fought against the glass. Fresh souls writhed vibrantly, emitting flashes of light. This one, murky and grayed, barely rubbed the glass.
In a world where The Eating Ocean’s powers had distorted natural law, the things most valuable to people had become accessible in ways they had never been before.
It was the Strike who had first leveraged such severe potentials for personal gain. They’d eaten feelings, thoughts, and memories—dined on souls until the human beings they kept as pets were nothing more than glassy-eyed dolls. Strike hadn’t needed sustenance. They’d consumed these things to satisfy bottomless cravings, and although they were now gone, the Strike had taught humanity that it could open a door of infinite possibility in this world. Things could be done with and to nature that shouldn’t be possible. Without being a Strike, much of it still wasn’t possible, but that hadn’t stopped people from trying.
The Mystics sourced mutated items from En Sanctus to try and replicate the jagged language inscribed on them, hoping to also replicate the effects.
In the State, the same process was controversial and therefore underfunded. They hadn’t mastered it successfully, but they had discovered something else.
The State could use the element of time to exorcize Madness, but every now and again they’d extract it instead, inject it into something else. In their darkest days, they’d done this to embryos. Black breeding, they’d dubbed it.
The State had recovered from that transgression and claimed the practices were over, but it was very fresh in the mind of the En Sanctans, still reeling from The Ocean’s War and the costly defeat of the Strike.
“What is the state of the soul?” Manaj asked, eyeing the soul in the bottle.
“It’s tired.” Lethe lowered his voice as he looked closely into the vial. “But no mutation or infection. With all it’s been through, at least a Strike didn’t eat it.”
“And the bottles on the bottom?”
